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Climate Change
The Climate Change LEADS Project: Increasing resilience in coral reefs and the people who depend on them
Florida’s coral reef is the third largest barrier reef in the world, and home to more than 6,000 species of marine plants and animals. Unfortunately, climate change has already begun to affect this reef, which is the foundation Florida’s diverse and rich marine ecosystem. Warmer water temperatures associated with global climate change are causing widespread coral bleaching, which stresses corals and makes them more prone to disease and death. Not only do scientists predict that water temperatures may exceed the temperature threshold for bleaching globally within the next 100 years, but they worry that waters in Florida and the Caribbean could exceed that threshold as early as 2020. These potential changes, as well as already existing threats to coral reefs like poor water quality, over-fishing, diver damage, and boat groundings, have grave implications for Florida’s productive coral reef, as well as for the lucrative tourism and fishing industries it sustains—together, these industries produce nearly $3.4 billion annually in income and sales for the state and its residents.
The Climate Change LEADS Project (Linking Environmental Analysis to Decision Support), which was funded by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration and the Batchelor Foundation, was designed to explore and improve the resilience of south Florida’s coral reef systems to climate change. Coral assemblages that are more “resilient” are better able to resist, tolerate, or recover from climate change stresses, including coral bleaching caused by high water temperatures, in a way that maintains their key ecosystem functions and processes. “Resilient” corals are also most likely to survive for future resource use and enjoyment, so understanding the factors that influence and enhance resilience is key to the long-term management, health, and survival of Florida’s reefs. This project used a three prong creating a model that used the best available science, performing broad climate change and coral reef outreach, and involving stakeholders through-out the entire process.
What does resilience mean for coral reefs and climate change?
For a coral reef—or any other ecosystem—resilience has three main components:
- Resistance: the ability of corals to resist negative impacts of stress
- Tolerance: the ability of corals that suffer negative impacts to rebound and live
- Recovery: the replacement of dying corals with new corals instead of with a different type of organism such as macroalgae
Project Objectives/Goals
The Project had four overarching goals:
- synthesize data on environmental factors that influence coral resilience in the Florida Keys
- develop an interactive online geographic information system (GIS) tool to illustrate those resilience patterns and simulate the potential impact of management responses to climate change
- educate decision-makers, resource managers, stakeholders, and the public about the implications of climate change for reefs, about the interactive tool, and about possible strategies to enhance reef resilience as global temperatures change
- create management strategies and policy recommendations to enhance resilience with the input and support of stakeholders.
This project is important because few concrete strategies exist, in Florida or globally, to buffer reefs from the ill-effects of climate change. Many resource managers realize that climate change is happening, and that it will affect diverse, valuable coral ecosystems, but few possess the formal tools and management responses necessary to cope with these emerging climatic changes. Climate Change LEADS accordingly fills an important void, and should serve as a useful model for coral reef ecosystems around the globe.
Project Results
- Completed coral reef resilience research:
During the first year of this project, our research staff analyzed 12 years of water quality data from the Florida Keys to elucidate which environmental factors played the largest role in coral bleaching. The water quality parameters we evaluated included: water temperature, ammonia, nitrate, total nitrogen, total organic nitrogen, turbidity, light attenuation, salinity, dissolved inorganic nitrogen, and chlorophyll a. - Developed A GIS tool that illustrates resilience patterns:
This tool, which can be found at http://www.worldwildlife.org/ resiliencemap, includes a general overview, tutorial, general results section and the database download. It is already being used by scientists, natural resource managers, and other stakeholders to improve responses to bleaching in south Florida.
We created a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based tool that illustrates these resilience patterns within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and allows users to manipulate the data layers in prescribed and unique ways. - Educated decision-makers, resource managers, stakeholders, and the public about climate change impacts and reef management strategies to combat them:
WWF organized myriad events to educate the public, managers, and decision-makers about climate change and Florida’s reefs, as well as to develop, shape, and refine management strategies for those reefs, including our on-line decision-support tool.
A Model For Other Regions
Putting stakeholders, scientists, resource managers, and interested individuals in touch with each other, and promoting viable strategies to buffer Florida’s reefs from climate change by enhancing their resilience, were the hallmarks of this project that should help it serve as a model for other reef-dependent parts of the world.
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